As an eLearning course trainer, you are probably aware of the fact that quizzes are the best way to check whether or not your learners are on the right track and are retaining knowledge appropriately. There are several businesses who have adopted quizzes to know their target audience better. However, they fail to do so due to inappropriate usage of the quizzes. To get results, you need to know about different types of quizzes and how to use them perfectly for your audience. Let’s discuss about how to make simple yet effective quizzes to inject knowledge into your learners’.
Create Clear and Simple Questions
The first and the most important piece of advice is to keep the message of your quiz questions simple and clear. The more concise the form of your questions, the better is the outcome. In other words, you should avoid scientific lingo, and opt for more plain wording.
Bear in mind that your learners are still in the process of learning, and that they might not be knowledgeable about industry-specific jargon. Try to form your questions in one sentence following the principles of W’s – questions starting with who, what, when, why, where and how.
Pay special attention to the phrases and tenses you are using and avoid incorporating unnecessary information that would confuse your learners.
Add Factual Quizzes
Factual questions are the ones that require answers based on certain facts. This means that there should be only one correct answer for each question which can be checked with the eLearning course that you have already shared with your learners.
Factual questions require that every answer has supporting evidence, and they shouldn’t involve any personal opinions and feelings. If you create a quiz which contains such questions, it will be easier for you to evaluate your learners.
Set a Goal
When setting a goal for your quiz, you should ask yourself some of the following questions. What are the learning objectives of this quiz? Is it developed in a way that can trigger my learners’ complex thinking? Will it appropriately measure the level of their retention?
Afterwards, you should create a quiz with questions that are aligned with your previously determined goals. It’s always a good idea to focus on the application of the delivered eLearning content in real life situations, rather than keeping everything on an entirely theoretical level.
Since nothing good can come out of trying to trick your learners with needlessly complicated questions, always stick to the plan of the eLearning course and don’t ask for any information that is outside of it.
Incorporate Variety of Quizzes
If you stick to only one type of question, you will be missing out on different assessment techniques. Also, your learners will start getting bored after a certain point of time. That’s why you should rather opt for different types, but be careful about giving clear and proper guidelines, so that your learners know what they need to do. Moreover, you can provide them with some additional comments and descriptions to make it easier.
Some of the question types you may want to use includes:
True or False – Although forming such questions is probably the easiest way, try not to incorporate too many of them, since they cannot test your learners’ knowledge the way other question types can. This is because your learners can then simply rely on their luck instead of their knowledge.
Multiple choice – This is one of the most popular question types based on its effectiveness, especially when it comes to employee sensitivity training quizzes. They include several answer options, although only one is correct and the others are the so-called “distractors”. When you are coming up with these different answer options, try not to offer too many choices, rather focus on their construction.
Fill in the blank – Also referred to as “completion questions”, they are a great way to check if your learners know how to use a specific phrase that they have learned in some context. These kinds of questions should be in the form of a sentence that contains some blanks, without any additional hints.
Matching – These questions are formed by providing several words on one side, and several expressions on the other side, which need to be matched in order to form a correct definition. They are great for learners who are still new to the course.
Definitions – These questions can be formed either as fill-in-the blank questions or matching questions. The first method is better if you want to check your learners’ expertise in a certain area, while the latter is more suitable for those who still haven’t master their course.
Open answer – Also known as open response, this question type is great for when you want to motivate your students to work on finding creative solutions to some problems. Since the name itself suggests that they are “open”, you have to come up with very specific instructions in order not to confuse the learners.
Provide Appropriate Feedback
Providing feedback to each question will help you deliver valuable insights and stay focused on previously determined learning objectives of your quiz. Moreover, you need to provide factual examples to explain to you learners why the answers are correct and incorrect.
To conclude, a well-designed quiz will be beneficial for you and your learners, as it will serve as an indicator of what needs to be improved when it comes to your strategies and learning methods. Follow our tips to ensure that you have created the best quiz possible, one that will meet everyone’s objectives accordingly.
